


It's all me, just don't go

by Daseyshipper



Category: GLOW (TV 2017)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Lots of Cursing, so mad its canceled
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-10
Updated: 2020-10-10
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:41:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26926756
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Daseyshipper/pseuds/Daseyshipper
Summary: Sam tries to get Ruth to take the directing job and they finally have it out.
Relationships: Sam Sylvia/Ruth Wilder
Comments: 7
Kudos: 20





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> When I was about halfway through writing this, I went browsing and realized "if I should falter" by samchandler1986, aka the originator of this ship, started with a similar premise, and their fics are awesome, so everyone (including me) should go read that one too!

“What’s happening right now? Did you finally inhale too much glitter?”

“I’m serious, you’re the only other person she might listen to.”

Sam ran the hand that wasn’t holding the phone roughly over his face. “We didn’t exactly part on the best of terms.”

Debbie rolled her eyes, puffing out a cloud of smoke in exasperation. “Jesus, why would that even surprise me? You two handle being in love worse than anyone I’ve ever met.”

A part of Sam wanted to ask what Debbie knew about it, but he decided instead to ignore the comment. He wasn’t about to have a conversation with Debbie Egan about his _feelings_. “What did you say to her anyway?” he snapped, making an accusatory face she couldn’t see.

Debbie was quiet for a minute, taking a drag off her cigarette while she tried to frame her interaction with Ruth in a way that put her in a better light. She was only being honest, after all. And offering her a new career at the same time – zero uncertainty. How had she been anything but helpful?!

“I just told her,” Debbie said, waving the cigarette around as though Sam were there to see her asserting this innocently, “that directing was a great new path for her.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And that lots of great people like her audition for years and just get disappointed, and I really wanted to support her talent.” _That’s definitely what I said. In so many words_ , she convinced herself.

“Wow, so did you always know how to kick people when they’re down or did you learn that from wrestling?” He mugged into the phone, a smartass smile masking a growing unease.

“Fine, ok? That’s why I’m asking you to do a better job. Carmen told me she’s back in L.A., you can see her in person.” Debbie heard Sam exhale hard into the phone, and took this as a sign of dwindling resistance. “You know, in case maybe…” she drew it out, half-tentative, half-teasing, “you wanted a reason to see her anyway.”

***

“Fuck.”

Sam sat in the parking lot of the Campbell Motel, digging his hands into the steering wheel so that they wouldn’t make their way over to the flask he knew he still had stashed under the passenger seat. He was only here because his stupid heart attack kept making him rethink all of his decisions. He had to think of everything now through the lens of whether he would be okay with it if he died. Sometimes, when he got really tired of all the emotional analysis, he told himself it didn’t really matter if he’d be okay with it because he’d be fucking dead. But then there were other times, like now, and other decisions, like never seeing her again.

His gaze drifted again to the motel room door.

“Fuuuuuuuuuuuck!” he yelled into the void of his car. With a last small exhale for propulsion, he pushed himself out onto the pavement.

He smoothed the sides of his hair roughly as he walked past her car and stepped up onto the landing, stopping in front of the dark brown door with its spots of peeling paint. Maybe it wasn’t even her door. The only thing worse than psyching himself up for this conversation would be having to do it multiple times. Christ, this was stupid.

Angry at himself, the knocks came out harder than he intended.

\---

Behind the door, Ruth jumped, smudging mascara across her cheek. She stepped out of the bathroom and moved hesitantly toward the door, grabbing an iron as she went in case she needed a blunt object. She curled, for a moment, up onto her tiptoes to look out of the peephole, but quickly dropped her feet back down to the floor once she registered the sight of salt-and-pepper hair and aviators.

Her heart moved faster than her head and it only occurred to her that she might not want to answer after she’d already pulled at the handle of the door.

\---

The air whipped away from him and in its place was 5 feet 3 inches of heart-shattering anticipation. Her eyes shone expectantly, too dark in their too-pale face, the make-up shade all wrong for her, a violent clumsy slash of black ink the only thing reminiscent of Zoya.

Sam took it all in, unnerved. He cleared his throat, defaulting to what he knew.

“Let’s be clear, alright? This isn’t my romantic gesture, this isn’t me running after you, I’m here on business.”

_Damn it._

He saw the drop in Ruth’s eyes and mouth that indicated she’d been wounded. But, stubborn as ever, she pursed her lips and hardened her face, moving aside to silently wave him into the room.

Sam walked in and looked around the room, mostly because that’s what he was supposed to do. The book of monologues was folded like a tent on the bedspread -- one of those motel bedspreads whose red-and-brown color didn’t have a name but if you had to call it something – and he’d often had occasion to – it might be “rusted despair.” He could see that the lighting had also probably contributed to the poor application of cosmetics.

“What kind of business do we still have, Sam?” He wasn’t even facing her, but he could tell she’d crossed her arms over her chest in an attempt to be inhospitable. Joke was on her, he was used to inhospitable.

“Why’d you turn it down?” he asked.

“What?”

His body made its way back around where he could confirm he’d been right about the crossed arms. “Directing GLOW. Why’d you turn it down?”

The gut-punch she’d gotten from Debbie in the airport resurfaced in her abdomen, pushing bile up to her throat. She’d done the right thing. She needed to persevere and have faith. She’d done the _right. thing._

“It wasn’t right for me,” she said with practiced firmness. “I’m grateful for what you taught me, Sam. I actually, probably, have not said that enough, and so I should say it now. But I am an actress and I need to pursue different kinds of projects and characters.”

“What’s this character?” he gestured at her. She pinched her eyebrows together, then remembered her makeup. She rushed back uncomfortably to the bathroom, her shoulder and head pressed down like a quarterback pushing through absolutely nothing. Sam heard the water run and a minute later she came back out, roughly swiping at her face with a washcloth.

“I was trying something out for an audition. She’s a…” _hostess_ “…a restaurateur. It’s a great scene.” _Right this way, sir.  
_

Sam snorted. “Well, that’s great, I hope it goes well.”

Ruth didn’t appreciate the snort. “Do you?” she asked pointedly.

He put his hands on his hips and looked up to the ceiling. _Fucking nightmare._ “Yeah, Ruth, I actually do, but that doesn’t mean I think it will -- “

“Oh, yeah, here we go!”

“—or that I think you made the right call –“

“Another person who supposedly cares about me –“

“—or that it’s where you belong – “

“—telling me how pathetic I am, how I can’t cut it – “

“Don’t be a fucking idiot, Ruth!”

They stopped yelling over each other, her name ringing in both their ears. He softened at the sight of her glistening stare, the uneven complexion of her face as red splotches formed between the smeared ivory.

“I never said you can’t cut it. Alright? If I thought that, I wouldn’t have hired you.”

“You didn’t hire me,” she reminded him.

“You know what I –” he stopped before he raised his voice again. She was right anyway. Twice.

“Look,” he started again more patiently, “I’m sorry about what happened with the movie. I didn’t know it would go like that but I called you in because I do actually think you’re incredibly talented, Ruth. And I guess maybe I haven’t said _that_ enough, so I’m saying it now.”

Ruth looked down at her feet where she was wiggling her toes to keep from crying or screaming or running or pouncing or whatever else her body wanted to betray her by doing.

“And I don’t know how you and Debbie got twisted around or why you really rejected the offer,” Sam continued. “Debbie said whatever wrong thing she said, I guess. I also know you well enough to know that you don’t want to feel like you owe her something else.”

Ruth stiffened again, and Sam responded by speaking more insistently. Neither was totally conscious of the shift, acting simply on instinct.

“But this is a great opportunity, alright? It’s an opportunity you’ve been fighting for since we started! All of a sudden it’s not good enough?”

It felt like hands pushing at her chest, shoving her repeatedly. _Why don’t you just do it, Ruth? Huh? We’re doing you a favor! Just be grateful! Just be happy!_

Truth be told, this time to herself had given her pause. She had relived her and Debbie’s conversation over and over, sometimes interspersed with any number of terrible auditions and rejections, sometimes with the dull ache of missing Sam and missing GLOW shrouding it all like a filter muffling the sights and sounds. _How many times are you going to break your own heart?_ She didn’t know what it was, but if she had seen a therapist, they would have used the phrase “grieving process.”

But still. It was a process. And this felt like an attack, so she retreated. She tilted her head away and up, a familiar gesture of defiance. Sam’s eyes flashed and he took a step back, astounded by this repeat performance.

“Oh, we’re doing this again, huh? This is how it’s always going to work with you?” he spat, always too quick to anger. “Say you want something, throw your little doe eyes at it, then cry and run away when it’s not your perfect little fantasy?”  
  
“Oh, fuck you, Sam!” she exploded. “You think you were ever a fantasy? Oh yeah, I was so shocked when the angry drunk has-been, _who_ _ran away and left ME_ , also strung me along for a part! Yep, I was just getting the white picket fence ready right up until that happened!”  
  
His eyes narrowed, her spitefulness feeding his own. “Maybe I am a has-been, but what the hell are you, you fucking child? At least I spent thirty years making things instead of whimpering around in the fucking clouds, waiting for someone to hand me an Oscar.”  
  
“That’s exactly it, Sam! You _had_ the career you wanted. You’ve always done everything your way. You’ve _never_ compromised.”  
  
“Yeah, and where did that get me? I had a good run, you’re right, I was lucky. And I was destructive. And I was alone.” He felt the memory of the heart attack well up in his chest. “I wouldn’t let anyone get in my way until one day I realized no one cared where I was going.”  
  
“Don’t try to pull off a speech about love and acceptance, Sam, that’s not your genre,” she scoffed coldly.  
  
“Christ, you’re so stuck, Ruth! You’re so stuck in what is _supposed_ to happen! Ever since I met you you’ve been talking about being a ‘real actress’ and doing something ‘real’, but that’s not what you mean. You mean you’re supposed to do specific things for specific people and be taken ‘seriously’, whatever the _fuck_ that means! And everyone’s supposed to like you and tell you you’re brilliant and that your flaws give you depth, and you’re supposed to be with someone who coos and awwws and never gets mad at you. Well, you know what, Ruth, that’s all _bullshit!_ Okay? Here’s what’s ‘real’ – your arrogance isn’t cute, you did your best work on a girls’ wrestling show that aired at 2 A.M., and I’m not gonna act like a lobotomized eunuch just because I love you!”

Once again, the last words hung in a thick silence. At a loss, Ruth seized on them. “I thought this wasn’t a romantic gesture,” she said mockingly.  
  
“Yeah, well, surprise, another thing that wasn’t supposed to happen! Fuck me!” Sam waved his arms wildly, no longer in control of himself. “I wasn’t supposed to live this long, I wasn’t supposed to have a daughter, and I wasn’t supposed to give a _shit_ about some pushy, judgmental Midwestern pain in my ass, but here I am and, you know what, thank _god_.” He stopped and shook his head. “You can keep trying to hold on to some sort of illusory control by pretending that you don’t need any of it, Ruth, but I’ll know. I’ll know what this was. And I’ll die knowing that my messy, trashy, has-been life was real.”

And with a strut and a slam, he was gone.


	2. Chapter 2

_“_ You’re wrong about me!”

Sam turned, ready to snap back at her, but waited a beat when he took her in. Her face wasn’t contorted in anger like it had been in the room, and it wasn’t that pinched, obstinate look he knew so well either. Instead it was the look she had in the editing room – the shiny wide-eyed look she flashed him when she was about to share a great idea and didn’t want him to shoot it down. Her hand still firmly gripped the doorknob, allowing her the control to shut him out again if this went poorly.

“Am I?” he asked, now intrigued. Once again they shifted their body language in response to one another, slowly releasing their tension when the other did not take the opportunity to attack. Ruth shivered slightly, the sun setting over her now and ushering in a chill.

“I don’t think I’m too good for you. I’m scared that I…” she squirmed, trying to shake the words out. “I’m scared that I’m not enough for you.”

Sam blinked hard. “What?”

Ruth let go of the knob and inched toward him, her hands fidgeting. He moved closer, all confusion and curiosity.

“It’s like you said, Sam,” she gestured hopelessly. “You’ve already had this whole _life_. You’ve created things and been married and had children—”

“ _A_ child.”

“—and you’ve met people and trashed hotel rooms – ”

“Am I Keith Moon now?”

“—and you’ve won awards and you’ve been to Germany and you’ve tripped on acid. What can I possibly offer you?!”

“Well, if you wanted to find acid…”

“Sam!” she shouted, throwing out her hands. She took a deep breath and spoke again softly. “Sam, I love you. I can’t be another naïve young girl that you sleep with and get tired of.”

Sam’s face hardened and he moved swiftly to tower over her. He grabbed Ruth’s cheeks in his hands, bringing a rough kiss to cover her pouting lips. The desperate and determined force of his mouth on hers said what he wanted to say before he could form the words. _How could you think I’d want to be anywhere but here?_

He heard her let out a little cry underneath him. She wanted to believe him. She needed more. He tore himself away from her and stared darkly into her eyes.

“Ruth. It’s because I’ve done all of those things that I know that this is different. That _we_ are different. And you know what, yeah, I’m gonna get tired of you sometimes, because you’re always challenging me and pushing me and making me rethink everything because you’re so good and I fucking hate that,” he chuckled. “And you’re standing here making it sound like I’m already dead, for chrissakes, but I still got things to do, honey, and I want you there.”

Her eyes shone. “Really?”

“Jesus Christ, _yes,_ really!”

Ruth’s breath staggered out with a laugh. The sound flooded his chest and he bent down to kiss her again, slow, savoring. She wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed against him, more confident now that he was a solid place to rest.

She put her head down, blushing as they parted. “Do you want to… come back inside?” she said coyly, as though there were still anything to be coy about.

Sam grabbed her wrist and checked his watch, even now getting a little swell of pride from seeing it there.

“I don’t know, I did have to go make some other romantic gestures today…”

With a swat to his shoulder, she turned back to the door, letting her arm float down to wrap around his back. He smiled and pressed a kiss against her hair as they walked.

“I’m going to do my own things too, you know,” she said earnestly. “It’s the 80s, old man, I’m not just along for your ride. You might have to come sit at _my_ award dinners and look pretty.”

Sam groaned. “Yeah, fine, just listen, buy me some flowers once in a while…” he said as they disappeared into the motel.

***

  
“What can you tell me about your character, Miss Julie?”

“She is someone who is very conflicted about her identity. She has all the trappings of a perfect, dazzling life, but she’s very impulsive and really hasn’t explored who she is deep down,” Ruth shared thoughtfully. “Also make sure to get the spelling right, it’s Miss Jewelly, J-E-W-E-L-L-Y.”

The interviewer smiled. “That costume really is great.”

“Our designer Jenny Chey did a great job giving the ‘gems’ some texture without making it so the girls were getting themselves caught during moves. We had some accidents early on,” Ruth chuckled. 

“What’s it like directing yourself?”

“Well, since I work with these girls and do what they’re doing every day, we have a lot of trust. We trust each other’s instincts and we try a lot of different things. And I get some feedback on my own scenes from my boyfriend, who’s also a director.”

“Of course,” the interviewer smiled knowingly. “So what’s next for you both?”

“Oh, a quick vacation in Vegas, and then we’ll be doing a new film together during the hiatus that I think is going to make real inroads in feminist cinema,” Ruth beamed. “It’s called _Kuntar’s Revenge_. That’s K-U-N...”

“Um, I don’t think we can print that...”

  
Sam smiled as he stood to the side and watched Ruth talk about the movie. When she’d finished up the last few questions, she grabbed her purse and trotted over to him.

“Ready to go?”

“Jesus, yes, if only so I can stop being referred to as your boyfriend. Like I’m fucking Kirk Cameron and you ripped my picture out of Tiger Beat.”

Ruth laughed as she curled up into his outstretched arm.

“I have to tell Justine to start hiding her things...”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I started writing this before the show was cancelled and once that happened I knew I had to get this down and play in this universe a little longer. Also thanks to Taylor Swift for a fic title with a double meaning now :( Fingers crossed for a movie!!


End file.
